


I Downloaded a Demon!

by Katy133



Category: Pony Island (Video Game 2016), Welcome to Hell - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, Fluff, Gen, Illustrated, Lil and Zack cameo, Mentions Murder, Mentions Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-18 19:54:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15493464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katy133/pseuds/Katy133
Summary: A crossover fic of Welcome to Hell and the video game Pony Island. Sock is a demon.exe file that appears on Jonathan's laptop. Sock wants Jonathan's soul, but that's going to be difficult, as Sock can only play around with Jonathan's computer files. Made for the W2H Big Bang.





	1. Sock.exe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thank you to Ratmeatt for illustrating this fic.  
> Additional illustrations are by myself.  
> Links to illustrations will be at the end of each chapter.
> 
> You don't need to have played Pony Island or be too familiar with it to read this fic. Basically, Pony Island is a 2016 video game where .exe files are demons with artificial intelligence, and the Devil is their creator, who has made a game in an attempt to gain the player's soul.

Jonathan's eyes were lit by the soft glow of his laptop. He was listening to Valhalla Soundbox on his headphones as he checked his emails.

This was his evening ritual. Get home from school. Finish homework. Check emails. Maybe even play a game if there was time to spare.

Oh, look. A sale for retro games on Itchio. Valhalla Sandwiches seventy-five-percent off on Tuesday. A promotional email for new guitars--He sent it to Trash; after he bought his last guitar, the store's website wouldn't stop sending him stuff. An accidental email from his mom--he should really teach her how to send test draft emails to the Trash folder. More spam telling him he'd won God knows what--he'd never won anything in his life.

Jonathan was not exactly a social butterfly.

Go to bed. Set alarm clock. Turn off the light. Sleep. That was how he did things.

He wanted to get a good night's sleep. Not because Jonathan enjoyed school and wanted to be bright-eyed for it. Not at all. He didn't _hate_  school. He was just... apathetic.

That was kinda Jonathan's whole thing. Unless it was something to do with sandwiches.

The laptop lay dormant, and all was quiet.

However, had Jonathan opened up his laptop, he would have seen that _quite a lot_  was going on inside it. He would have not missed the new file on the desktop.

It was titled, "Sock.exe," with a square, red icon.

 

He didn't _miss_  it, actually. That would be weird, because Jonathan Combs was the sort of person who kept very few desktop icons. Everything was tucked away in document folders, so failing to notice a new icon would have been odd. He's not an idiot, after all.

It was a new addition. Jonathan closed the laptop half an hour before its unannounced arrival, to study for his Math test. Upload time traced to: 7:31 pm, UTC. Sunset.

Also known as "the Fiendish Hour."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Illustrations:  
> 1st by Ratmeatt: https://ratmeatt.tumblr.com/post/176461094094/my-half-for-welcome-to-hell-big-bang-2018-links  
> 2nd by Katy133: https://www.deviantart.com/katy133/art/I-Downloaded-a-Demon-1-Desktop-757010244


	2. Open in new window

Jonathan stepped off the school bus and walked to his house. He was alone.

Tossing his backpack by his bedroom door, he sat on his bed to open his laptop.

 _No homework today._  The stars must have aligned with each other or something, because somehow, against all the odds, every one of Jonathan's teachers decided not to give out worksheets. That meant free time. Imagine what he could do with that extra time. The possibilities were endless!

Jonathan decided on Itch.io.

Wondering if he should look for a platforming game or a hack-n-slash, he was about to click on the Internet Explorer button.

Then he stopped. He saw it.

Sock.exe.

On the bottom-left corner of his desktop, was the icon. Clear as day. Red and square.

The red pixels seemed to form a smiling face.

"What?" thought Jonathan in a whisper.

Jonathan did what any person, upon seeing a mysterious file they didn't recognise: He right-clicked on it and clicked Scan.

The laptop's anti-virus program opened up in a new window, but for a _split_  second, Jonathan could have sword the .exe icon twitched. Not _glitched,_  but twitched. Like the cursor tickled it.

The anti-virus' pinwheel stopped spinning, and announced its result:

1 FILE(S) SCANNED. NO SPYWARE FOUND.

That eased Jonathan. He didn't even realise his heart had speed up a little at the thought of a virus.

 _So what now?_  Did he leave it? Delete it? Open it?

 _Delete it,_  thought Jonathan. _Yeah. Definitely delete it._

What kind of file would something called "Sock.exe" be? A sock pattern catalogue. A knitting guide? A boxing game?

Jonathan dragged the file to the recycling bin, too apathetic to bother solving this mystery.

And that was when the file jumped off his cursor.

The first time it happened, Jonathan assumed he released the cursor too soon. But then he tried dragging the file to the bin again. And again.

And again.

Each time, the file jumped back to its place on the desktop.

Now this really caused Jonathan to sit up and take notice.

"What are you?" thought Jonathan aloud.

As if on cue, a window opened next to the icon. It was a chat log of some sort. Black background, red text. Pixelated font. Text parser at the bottom. Sure enough, the blue-framed window read "Sock.exe" at the top.

There was one message in the chat log:

[Hey there!]

The text parser's text cursor seemed to blink at him in a friendly way. _Go on. Type something._

Jonathan indulged. He typed:

Jonathan: hello

Response:

[Hey there, good-looking!]

Jonathan looked at the screen incredulously. What was all this?

"Yeah, like you can even see me..." he mumbled bitterly.

[I can too! There's a camera-thingy on ya computer.]

"What? Shi-"

Jonathan was about to put a thumb over the webcam above the screen when he froze.

"Wait... Can you _hear_  me?"

[Yeah.]

Jonathan took both hands off the keyboard.

"Are you some sort of hacker?"

[In a way, I guess. But not really.]

"What do you mean? What do you want?"

[I'm a demon.exe and I'm here to haunt you.]

Well, that wasn't the reply Jonathan was looking for. He leaned back into his pillow, his brow furrowed in confusion and frustration.

"This is too weird."

[So... do you feel haunted yet?]

Jonathan ignored the question, it being too silly of a question to entertain.

"So are you, like... a real person, or a robot?"

[I'm an arteyfical intelligence.]

Jonathan re-read Sock.exe's message before replying.

"Did... did you just spell "artificial" wrong?"

[No. I meant to spell it that way.]

Jonathan snorted. "You meant to spell it wrong?"

[Look, this isn't as easy as it looks. This doesn't have spell check.]

Jonathan didn't know how to respond to that. But after a brief pause, there was another message.

[I can do this.]

A window for MS Paint opened up. An invisible cursor that Jonathan didn't control began painting. Purple, blue, green, yellow, red. Nearly every colour option was used. When the dust settled, the resulting drawing was an array of blobs and lines, like a rainbow exploding.

[Ta-dah!]

Jonathan stared wide-eyed for a moment, the screen's light shining in the darkened room.

"What else can you do?" said Jonathan in a low voice.

A quick response this time. Just one word.

[Lots.]

"Like...?"

[ :) ]

Jonathan cocked an eyebrow. He waited for more.

[That's a smiley face. It's sideways. You have to tilt your head to the left. Can you see it?]

Jonathan looked at the screen dumbly for a moment.

"That's it?"

[What?! A demon AI isn't enough for you, you want more?]

Jonathan had to let out a breath of a laugh at that. "Fair enough."

He moved a hand through his hair.

"Where are you from?"

[Synergy.]

Jonathan opened Internet Explorer and began typing.

[What are you doing?]

Jonathan was searching "Synergy" under exact quotes.

That, or course, came up with over a thousand useless results.

He tried again. _Synergy AND demon AND sock.exe..._

A website came up. It looked like a site that was eternally trapped in the nineteen-nighties. Looking through it, it seemed like the right place--same black background and red text as Sock.exe--but lacked any information that would illuminated Jonathan's predicament. The top of the page read:

$ WELCOME TO HELL - SYNERGY

Jonathan clicked on the "About and Contact" page. The page greeted him with this message:

_Here at Hell, we attempt to build a stable working environment of murder, torture, and career opportunities. If you're interested in working with our team, please send us your resume, along with a scanned copy of your sigil and a sample of goat's blood. If your experience is satisfactory, we'll send you a copy of our contract. We are looking forward to working with you. - M_

Below that message, read:

$ SITE IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Jonathan closed the window and looked down at the little .exe icon on screen.

"So you're really a demon?"

[Yep! Pretty cool, huh?]

"Ye... I... don't know..."

Jonathan pinched the bridge of his nose. He didn't know what to make of all this. This "demon" passed the Turing Test and had personality. Jonathan felt like he had a million questions that were all waving their arms, begging to be asked first.

So Jonathan decided to pick one and go from there.

"You said that you're here to haunt me?"

[Yes. It's my function. It's why I was made a demon.]

"And... what does haunting me entail?"

[You know, haunt. Like in movies. Scare. Torment. Be a general annoyance. That kind of thing.]

"Sounds frightening. I'll try to stay strong under the torture." said Jonathan, his eyes rolling.

Jonathan glanced at the clock in the bottom-right corner of the taskbar. The time might as well have read, "Too late. Go to sleep now."

Jonathan mentally swore. "I'm late."

He looked back at the chat log. He considered staying up all night to talk. It seemed weird to just let this demon AI live in his laptop, no questions asked.

But Jonathan was tired. Really, _really_  tired.

Besides, _why do something today when you could put if off to tomorrow?_

"I'm going to bed. We'll talk about... all this... later."

[Alright. My name's Sock, by the way.]

Then another line of text appeared underneath.

[Jonathan? You're name's Jonathan, right? It's what you named the drive.]

"Yeah? What is it?"

There was a pause before the teen was given an answer.

[Goodnight, Jonathan.]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Illustrations:  
> 1st by Ratmeatt: https://ratmeatt.tumblr.com/post/176461094094/my-half-for-welcome-to-hell-big-bang-2018-links  
> 2nd by Katy133: https://www.deviantart.com/katy133/art/I-Downloaded-a-Demon-2-Chat-log-757011964  
> 3rd by Katy133: https://www.deviantart.com/katy133/art/I-Downloaded-a-Demon-3-Sock-MS-Paint-757012224  
> 4th by Katy133: https://www.deviantart.com/katy133/art/I-Downloaded-a-Demon-4-Synergy-757012414


	3. Press Start or Quit

Jonathan rushed straight upstairs to his bedroom. Didn't even grab a sandwich from the kitchen. There was no time for that. He wanted answers.

He pressed the power button on his laptop and waited. It felt like it was taking forever to load.

After about five years--or what _felt_  like five years--the screen greeted him with his Valhalla Soundbox-themed desktop.

That wasn't all that greeted him.

He double-clicked on Sock.exe.

The chat log once again sprang up.

[Jonathan! :D ]

"I still have questions."

[Ask away, handsome!]

Jonathan frowned, but ignored the nickname.

"Well... first off... " Jonathan's eyes stared up at the wall, trying to figure out where to start. "Explain Sinergy. What is it?"

[It's my boss' company! He's like, the top guy, and I'm an employee.]

Jonathan raised an eyebrow. "Company. Okay, a company for _what_  exactly?"

[The afterlife.]

"What?"

[Sinergy is where souls go after they've died. If they... fit in with the requirements. Like killing people.]

There was a long pause between the two souls.

[You're feeling skeptical about all this, aren't you?]

"Yeah. Very."

Then he thought about the Sinergy website. _" Here at Hell, we attempt to build a stable working environment of murder, torture, and career opportunities."_

"So... it's Hell? The Hell part of the afterlife?"

Yeah. Jonathan was having _a lot_  of trouble believing all this.

[Sinergy's been around for a loooooong time. But it just started "online-based outsourcing" as my boss put it.  They just finished setting up Hell's wifi, so now they're trying to  use computers and phones to collect souls.]

"Collect souls?"

[Yeah, that's why I'm here. To take your soul.]

Jonathan blinked.

"That's not gonna happen."

[What? Dying? It's gonna happen eventually. Why put it off?]

A pause, and then another line.

[You'll get a job as soon as you arrive! Who knows, maybe we'll be teamed up together for a gig! We could collect more souls together. Wouldn't that be great?]

Jonathan suddenly felt a charged anger. His voice was firm and dark. "You are _not_  going to convince me to die."

[Why not?]

Jonathan dragged the chat log to the side of his desktop, revealing his desktop icons on the left-hand side.

[Hey!]

With his cursor, he dragged Sock.exe over to the icon marked "Recycling Bin."

[Wait! Please!]

Jonathan ignored the text, dropping the file into the trash. The chat log closed in a blink.

Almost done. One step left.

He right-clicked on Recycling Bin.

_Are you sure you want to permanently delete the contents of your Recycling Bin?_

_Yes. Very._

_Right?_

His cursor hovered over the Yes button in hesitation.

Then Jonathan heard a sob.

It was a tiny sob. Barely audible. And it lasted for a fraction of a second. But the fact that it was there and that he heard it caused a lot of problems...

It sounded human.

Well, that changes things, doesn't it? You can't go deleting humans from your laptop, can you? Even if they want you to die. Killing them would make you just as bad.

Jonathan sighed as any pretense that Sock.exe was a robot that felt no pain fell away.

He selected "Restore selected item" instead.

The chat log appear of its own volition.

[Thank you.]

That's all it said for a moment. As if the person behind the text had to take a moment to think. Or dry their eyes.

[You won't delete me them?]

"I won't delete you." Jonathan leaned back a little. "So... what now?"

[Besides killing yourself?]

His eyes narrowed. "That's not gonna happen any time soon."

[Then what now? In the meantime?]

Jonathan ran a hand through his hair. "I'm gonna play something before the evening's out."

He just wanted to forget all this, if just for a moment.

Jonathan opened up one of his old games. A medieval role-playing game that he had played many times before.

The teen began to feel himself relax as he went through the motions of buying equipment, exploring dungeons, and fighting monsters.

Things were going just fine. For a while.

But then he noticed an extra dialogue option when he came across a travelling merchant:

[Jonathan, why do you play these games? They look so old!]

Jonathan's eyebrows furrowed.

"Sock."

[How'd you guess?]

Jonathan closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment. "It's a retro game. It's _supposed_  to look old. It's nostalgic. It brings back good memories, you know?"

[Oh.]

Sock spoke as text, not as sound. But Jonathan was sure it was an "Oh" of genuine understanding, and not disappointment. Though, he could never be certain.

"You can enter my games as well?"

[Yeah. pretty cool, huh? So why are we doing in this dark, creepy, brick-filled place?]

 _"'We?'_  Well, we're in an underground chamber. A dungeon. And _I'm_  going to find the entrance to the next level down."

[Can I come?]

"No. You're a shopkeeper. They're programmed to stay put."

[Is that all that's stopping me from coming with you? A teensy bit of programming?]

There was a flash of green pixels around the merchant, distorting the sprit in a glitch-y movement, like an old stop-motion jerk. A moment later, the merchant jumped up from behind their cart of haggling items to stand next to Jonathan's avatar.

[Ta-dah! So can I come with?]

Jonathan was going to ask how Sock did that, but decided against that. Constantly asking, "How did you do that?" would be in danger of sounding repetitive.

"Uh, sure. You can join me."

[All right!]

The sprite Sock was possessing punched the air enthusiastically.

Jonathan turned a corner of the dungeon. Sock followed.

"Get ready for some battles."

Before the teens knew it, they started bonding. One would think that talking to a demonic artificial intelligence would be complicated, but it was surprisingly intuitive.

 _This is like talking to someone you're in a long-distance relationship with,_  thought Jonathan.

They had managed to traverse several levels of the dungeon together.

A while had passed before Sock was the first to go back to talking about something other than the game.

[What would it be like to enter the dark web of the internet?]

"I have no idea. Can you even enter the 'normal' part of the internet?"

[I already have. I did it yesterday. Lota weird stuff. And cute stuff. And fun stuff.]

Jonathan decided not to dwell on that.

[Jonathan you mentioned that you like this game because it's nostalgic. That it brings happy memories. What did you mean by that?]

"Because..." Jonathan sighed. "Because, it's what games looked like when I was a little kid. Back when you saw things differently and felt differently, you know? It's nice to go back to the simple stuff you felt before the world felt so complicated..."

Jonathan winced. That explanation ended up being a lot more thoughtful than he'd expected.

[But wouldn't you miss the good stuff you have now? Like your friends at school?]

Jonathan gave a bitter look to the screen, his chin resting on his folded arms as he brought his knees close to his chest. "What friends at school?"

Sock thought back to all the files he'd sifted through in Jonan's laptop. No long chats on social media. No emails from people at his school. Nothing.

[Oh.]

A beat. Then...

[Why not make friends with more people?]

"No," he said through slightly-gritted teeth. "I'm not exactly popular."

Sock thought for a moment. Then something struck the AI.

[Are you bullied?]

"..."

There was a very long pause between them as the game's battle music played in Jonathan's headphones.

[Hey, could you pull up that drawing I did earlier?]

Jonathan obliged, pausing the game and opening the MS Paint "masterpiece."

[That's a drawing of me. That's what I looked like when I was alive.]

Jonathan's eyes widened. He frowned.

"When you were _alive?"_

[Yeah. I was alive. I died. Now I'm a program.]

"You were like me?"

[Yeah? So?]

"This is too weird..."

He leaned back so that his head was on his bed's sheets. He closed his eyes as he let things sink in.

"What was your name?" he asked quietly. "When you were alive..."

Jonathan had to sit upright and crank his head at an awkward angle to see the response.

[Sock was my nickname.]

"And your actual name?"

[Promise not to laugh.]

"Sure. Fine. So what was it?"

Sock answered, and it took a great deal of willpower on Jonathan's part not to let out a "Ha!"

He certainly smirked. He didn't for long however, as a horrid thought occurred to him.

Sitting back up properly, Jonathan closed the MS Paint drawing and opened up his internet browser. He began typing.

[What'cha doing?]

"I'm searching your name..."

Exact search in quotes: "Napoleon Maxwell Sowachowski"

Hit enter. First result.

Jonathan looked at the news article. Sock's photo had his eyes black-barred to protect his identity. He was a non-adult, after all. But Jonathan could still make out everything else in the photo. Purple skirt, red hat, yellow goggles, scarf, vest, cheeky grin...

The headline read, "'Loving, Energetic' Son Murders His Parents in Their Sleep."

Jonathan skimmed the article. By all accounts, Napoleon Maxwell 'Sock' Sowachowski was a "Kind, loving, and energetic person." Neighbours were "shocked" and "disbelieving" at the news that someone like Sock would commit murder--his _own family_ \--and then kill himself.

 _"Why?"_  was all that Jonathan could say.

[It was an accident. I did it in my sleep.]

"Did you also kill yourself while asleep?"

A pause.

"Sock?"

[Let's talk about something else.]

Jonathan felt a pang of regret when he read that. _I shouldn't have..._  he thought.

He quickly closed the article and went back to his desktop. Then he stopped at glared at yet another new addition to his display of shortcuts.

"Sock, what's this new folder? 'Sock's Stuff?'"

[Don't open it.]

Jonathan's cursor immediately hovered over folder.

The follow-up response was rapid.

[NO. DON'T TOUCH IT.]

Jonathan tapped his fingers on the laptop's trackpad. The folder opened up.

His eyes scanned through the different files. There were .pngs, .jpgs, .gifs...

"Cats? You've filled it with cat photos?"

[Humph! It's MY folder. You've got your own. You've got tons!]

Jonathan tried not to laugh. But then his smile fell once he started scrolling through the folder.

"How many pictures did you collect?"

He glanced down at the bottom of the window. That was when he stopped smiling.

"Three gigabytes?!"

[Um... I may have gotten carried away. A little. But they're so cute.]

"Sock, you have to delete these. Three gigs is bigger than most of my _games."_

[At least let me keep a couple. A top twenty.]

"..."

[Please?]

"Fine." He paused. "Just... stop messing around with my laptop, okay?"

[Got it!]

They began listening to Jonathan's music together. Valhalla Soundbox was something unfamiliar to Sock, and as soon as Jonathan discovered that, he wanted to remedy things.

Sock was enjoying it, but... as the soft sounds played through the purple headphones, something wasn't stewing well for the demon. A sentence kept playing over and over in his code. In his memory.

_Are you bullied?_

He couldn't get the thought out of his head.

Jonathan yawned. "I think I'm gonna sleep now."

Sock typed up a new response.

[Hey... Jonathan?]

"Yeah?"

[Could you... maybe leave your phone plugged in? I'd like to keep listening to Valhalla Soundbox.]

Jonathan considered it. Without saying a word, he left the phone plugged into his laptop and closed the laptop. He knew Sock would turn off the PC once he was done. Jonathan walked across the room, got into bed, and turned off the light. The duvet cocooned him.

Little did he know, Sock did once more thing before turning off the laptop...

 _He said, "Stop messing around with his_ laptop..." thought Sock.


	4. New Notifications

Class was pretty uneventful. That was, until everyone's cellphone rang simultaneously. At full volume. It's hard to fully paint a word-picture of twenty-four students' different phones going off all at once in the middle of a very dry-sounding lecture on the importance of a stable economy. Picture a swarm of birds having a shouting match with a clown car traffic jam taking place in the middle of the Grand Canyon, and you've got the right idea.

This was high school. People didn't normally leave their phones on the highest volume setting. That was Jonathan's first clue that something was up.

Students checked their phones as the teacher grumbled.

In the two seconds of pandemonium, Jonathan noted a small detail that everyone else missed...

His phone was the only one that didn't ring.

Jonathan took a glance at his phone. No signs of life.

The teacher seemed to be ready to shrug it off, but then an elephant trumpeted behind her.

The noise didn't come from an actual live elephant in the classroom. There wasn't one. It had actually come from a student's phone. Judging by the student's expression, he hadn't set that ringtone on his device. And he couldn't have, considering that his phone had gone off just a few seconds ago like everyone else's, and there had been no sound of an elephant then. Nor would there had been enough time for him to have changed his ringtone within such a short stretch of time.

Although Jonathan was observant enough to pick up on this, the teacher, due to her growing impatience with the Younger Generation, did not.

It looked as if she was going to open her mouth to say something along the lines of "Detention," but instead, she was cut short by a sort of "DING, DING, DONG," sound.

The three distinct rings came from three students in the back row. They went off not at the same time, but in an order from the left-most student by the door, followed by the middle student, quickly followed by the right-most student near the window. Each ringtone was a semi-tone lower than the last, making it sound like the three students were a set of church bells being rung by an overenthusiastic monk.

The Laws of Chance made it incalculably unlikely that three students who _just happened_  to be sitting in a row, who _just happened_  to have similar ringtones _just happened_  to have all gotten a call at almost the exact same time by three different entities. So the teacher came to a more logical conclusion: It was organised by those three students as some form of a practical joke.

The teacher looked like she had had just about enough of this. "Zack, Tiffany, Alex. Out."

"But I-"

_"Out."_

The three students shuffled out with slightly wounded and very confused expressions.

When the door closed, the teacher gave her ultimatum, "The next one to disturb the class will also be asked to leave. Turn off your cellphones."

Before the students could fulfill the request, another terrific ringing of phones went off like a torpedo.

The long of the short of it was, by the time the class had ended, the only ones left spared and allowed to stay was the teacher herself, Jonathan, and a can of soda one of the students had left.

This bizarre outcome of events transpired throughout each of Jonathan's different classes in slightly varied--but ultimately similar--ways. He had _seven_  classes that collectively added up to eight hours, as was normal for your average American high schooler.

Being singled out in a group was not something Jonathan enjoyed. Even if that signaling out was of the "positive" type. It was weird to be the only student left in a classroom because all the other kids had done something wrong. It was weird to watch this process of elimination _four times_  with four different teachers.

Jonathan Combs was not an idiot. He was fully aware of who was responsible for all this. It didn't take a Nancy Drew or Dirk Gently to connect him telling Sock that he was being picked on at school yesterday, to the events of today.

He didn't have confirmation of his deduction yet. But he was sure.

He just needed to _get_  that confirmation.

Now that it was lunch time, he had a chance to make a phone call without getting penalised. He wasn't going to wait through the other three classes to get answers.

Setting aside his sandwich, he phoned his home's landline. As the phone rang, he pictured the kitchen phone ringing to the ears of no one. His mother was still at work and his father was still out of the picture.

Before the phone switched over to a voice message of his mother asking him to leave a message, Jonathan spoke into the ringing.

"Sock? Are you there? Can you please contact me? Like, right now?"

There was no answer. When the ringing stopped, and he heard a recording of his mother's voice saying that she wasn't in at the moment, Jonathan hung up.

Almost immediately, his phone buzzed. He had a text message:

[I can't talk, but I can type. How's it going?]

Jonathan began to type. He hit the Send button.

Jonathan: Sock, is that you?

Sock: You guessed it! :)

Jonathan: What did you do?

Sock: Aww, you figured out it was me! :)

Jonathan made a face to say, "Of course I did!" and he was positive Sock could see it through his phone's camera lens.

Sock: What? Don't you like it? Wasn't it funny?

Jonathan: Not really.

Sock:

Jonathan: Sock, this isn't right.

Sock: Why? They deserved it!

 _Not all of them,_  thought Jonathan. _It's not like everyone in my class hated me._  Then he thought about Magill Nancy--"Lil" for short--a girl with purple hair who kept to herself. He thought of Lil being sent out as well, and suddenly, Jonathan felt a lot madder.

Jonathan: This isn't right.

The teen _punched in_  the last letters for emphasis.

Sock: Come on, Jonathan! Being good and playing by the rules all the time is no fun! You gotta prank people once in a while! Stand up, and teach them a lesson! They hurt you!

Jonathan: How will _this_  teach them a lesson? They're not going to connect me to the their phones ringing. They're not going to think, "Hey, I should probably stop being a dick to Jonathan," after this.

Sock: What if they _do_  link up the two things?

Jonathan: Then they're going to think _I_  made those phone calls, and they're probably going to beat me up for getting them in trouble. What do you think about that?

There was a pause on Sock's response. That human hesitation that made it so hard for Jonathan to perceive Sock as something artificial.

Finally, a response. The final nail in the coffin of their relationship.

Sock: I could send them all text messages saying that it wasn't you.

Jonathan: No. No more. Stop fucking messing with my life!

With that, Jonathan turned off his phone.

The teen bit into his ham sandwich. Like a dog that had been scratched by a cat one too many times.

He drifted through the remaining three classes. His phone vibrated once during the bus ride, but he didn't take it out, instead choosing to stare out the window with half-lidded eyes.

Jonathan came home, but he refused to touch his laptop.


	5. Are you sure you want to quit?

All throughout English class, Jonathan was thinking about Sock.

Math class was no help in taking his mind off the demon. Nor Gym. Nor Science.

Jonathan had an awful pang in his stomach. It wasn't from eating. He knew what it was.

 _I need to tell Sock I forgive him,_  he thought.

He didn't want to forgive him. He wanted to forget. About yesterday. About the phone calls. About ever having a personal demon.

 _But he was only trying to help,_  kept circling his mind. _He had good intentions..._

There was nothing he could really do in the meantime. School hadn't ended yet, and the demon had left the teen's phone.

Jonathan sighed as he twirled his pencil, staring at the classroom's blackboard.

_I'll tell him once I get home._

Time crawled all the way to the end of the school day.

Jonathan came home from school, as usual. He got off the bus, as usual. Unlocked the front door with his set of keys, as usual. He set climbed up the stairs, as usual. He set his backpack down, as usual. He turned on his laptop, as usual.

What _wasn't_  usual was what he was greeted by.

No Sock.exe.

The screen displayed his desktop with two files. A zip folder and a simple text document. The latter was labelled as a "ReadMe.txt"

Jonathan looked at the zip file. It was labelled "GoodbyeJonathan.zip."

In a heartbeat, he opened the Read Me document.

The contents read as follows:

_Dear Jonathan,_

_I'm sorry for wrecking everything. I'm sorry for making you feel awful. And I'm sorry that I suck at my job._

_I think it'll be best if I leave._

Jonathan stopped reading to close his eyes and rub his fingers through the bridge of his nose.

 _Stupid,_  he thought. _I shouldn't have been so harsh on him. I_ really _shouldn't have been so harsh on him..._

The letter felt so wrong and sad to the teen. Just black text on a white background. It didn't feel like Sock. It was so cold and colourless. But that was disgustingly-fitting, given the message's words.

He continued reading:

_I'm going to put myself in a zip folder. It'll be like hibernating. I'll wake up once the file is unzipped, but until then, I won't feel a thing._

_I want you to put me in the trash. I can't do it myself._

Jonathan noted how Sock worded it. "Put me in the trash," instead of, "Delete me." As if wording it differently would hide that.

He read on:

_If you empty the recycling bin, this version of me will be gone. But there's a backup of my executable back at Synergy. They'll just be notified that I'm gone, and make a new version of me, and send me to another human._

_But I'll have forgotten you. I kinda don't want that._

Jonathan's chest felt tight.

_Or, if you can find it in your heart to forgive me, you can send the zip back to Synergy for me. That way, I can keep all of my memories. It's extra work for you, but I'd appreciate it._

_"Extra work?!"_  thought Jonathan. _Does he really think I hate him_ that _much?_

He read the last lines:

_The email address is: mephi***@sinergy***.net_

_Goodbye, Jonathan._

That was all he wrote.

Jonathan closed the letter. He paused. Then he right-clicked on zip file.

The drop-down menu appeared with the oh-so-familiar choices:

 _Extract All_  
_Scan_  
_Cut_  
_Rename_  
_View Properties_  
_**Delete** _

Jonathan made his choice.

_Extract All._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Illustrations:  
> 1st by Ratmeatt: https://ratmeatt.tumblr.com/post/176461094094/my-half-for-welcome-to-hell-big-bang-2018-links  
> 2nd by Katy133: https://www.deviantart.com/katy133/art/I-Downloaded-a-Demon-5-Right-Click-757012817
> 
> If you enjoyed this fic, please let me know in the comments. Also, check out the other fics for the W2H Big Bang collection.


End file.
